


Mix in their changeful sport

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Community: ladiesbingo, Future Fic, Gen, World Figure Skating Championships, allusion to past Mila/Sara, helsinki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 17:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Mila's won her world championship, and now she has to face the question:what next?And,how long?





	Mix in their changeful sport

Sara waited until the two of them were halfway down the corridor and out of earshot of the bevy of reporters before saying, 'Now what, World Champion?'

'Let's go somewhere that nobody wants to talk to us.' Mila covered her yawn with her hand. After throwing her heart and soul into her free skate and then dragging herself through the podium ceremony and press conference, she wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but the hotel was bound to be stuffy, overheated, and full of people with questions to ask.

'Have you been to Helsinki before?' Sara seemed to have even more energy now than she'd had before the event began.

'No.'

'I have. It's a really interesting city.' Sara looked around the changing room with a keen interest that made Mila smile. As if it was going to be any different from any other changing room at any other rink in any other city. 'Let's get out of here and go exploring.'

'You don't want to go to Chris Giacometti's party?' Mila had promised that she would go herself, but was regretting that now.

Sara pulled a face. 'If I go, Mickey will be hanging on my elbow all night.'

'Do you think we can get away with leaving our bags here?'

'Not if you want to see your skates again. Come on, get changed.' Sara plucked at the fabric of Mila's costume as if to emphasise her point. 'I know the back way out of here.'

Mila laughed wearily. Wistfully rejecting the possibility of just curling up on a bench and going to sleep there in the changing room, she reached up under her arm to undo the long zip.

'That's the spirit,' said Sara.

* * *

They took a train into the city centre. 'Look at the station building,' Sara said, not slowing up at all as they passed through it, so that Mila only got a glimpse of the grey horseshoe-shaped façade over her shoulder. And Sara walked with that same brisk stride all through the streets. Mila had to quicken her own natural pace to keep up.

They only slowed when Sara stopped suddenly and winced. 'Sorry. My knee.'

'Are you getting surgery on that?' Mila asked.

Sara nodded. 'Next month. They want to see how it settles down after the season, but it's got to happen, really. Whether it will do any good...' She let the thought trail away as she set off again, more slowly, now. They walked in silence for a little while, until the buildings. When Sara spoke again, it was to say, 'I'm glad it was you.'

'That's very generous of you.' Mila hesitated. 'Where are we going?' She had been walking alongside Sara without really marking street names or buildings, being careful not to catch the eye of any passers-by. Now was not the time to be recognised.

'To a park that I know. You said you didn't want to be with other people.'

'I don't.' She didn't need to say that Sara didn't really count as other people. They'd been rivals and friends (lovers, occasionally, too) for so long that being in each other's company was as natural and as painless as breathing. Mila wondered, for the first time, whether that would persist beyond their careers on the ice. Sooner or later one of them would retire, and then, perhaps one year later, perhaps five, so would the other. She shivered.

'Are you feeling cold?' Sara asked.

'No. Just old.'

Sara groaned. 'Imagine how I feel, then.'

A tram rattled past.

'Who's coming after you in Italy?' Mila asked.

'A girl called Caterina Maestri. She's from Padua, but she trains in the USA. And then Lotta Gauci. What about you? Petrenko and Rudnytskaya, obviously...'

'There are a lot coming up through Juniors,' Mila said. 'That's why I'm feeling old. Olga Nikolayeva is the one who'll go furthest, in my opinion.'

Sara nodded. 'I will watch out for her. Ah, here we are.'

Mila looked around. The city buildings had given way to the harbour on their left, and open space on their right.

'Come on,' Sara said. 'Are you OK climbing a bit of a hill? The view is worth it.'

'I'm not the one with knee surgery scheduled,' Mila said, and followed her up a steep tarmac path. There was just enough light for it to feel safe. Streetlamps illuminated circles of grass and fragments of trees. Neither of them looked around until they got to the top, and there was the whole city, the streets marked by their strings of lights, and the shimmering blackness of the harbour.

'There,' Sara said proudly, as if she'd built it all herself, 'how's that?'

'It's beautiful,' Mila agreed.

They stood in silence for a little while, huddled close together in the chilly spring night.

'How long do you think you'll keep going?' Mila asked. 'As long as you keep winning, of course, but how long beyond that?'

'I didn't win this time,' Sara pointed out, with a gentle nudge.

'No, but you might have done, and we both know it.'

Sara sighed. 'I don't know. Sometimes I think, for as long as they'll keep sending me. Sometimes I think, as soon as someone else lands a triple lutz-triple toe, I'll retire. But I love it.'

Mila nodded. 'It's worth it, isn't it? However long it lasts.'

'This, this lasts a year,' said Sara, who had done it before. 'You're the best in the world for a year – less, if you don't do well in the autumn. More, if you can do it again next year – if you can get past the person you took it from,' she added with a flash of a smile. 'But you have the summer, at least. And you never forget having been – where you are now.'

'I didn't mean being world champion,' Mila said, although she did, partly. 'I meant everything about the ice.'

'Ah,' Sara said. 'Well, that lasts as long as it lasts.'

And then Mila looked up.

'Sara,' she breathed, and took her friend's arm. 'Look.'

Above them, the sky was dancing in green and red, great curtains of light billowing across the night. Mila had seen this before, but the sight was as remarkable and as spectacular as if it were the first time.

'It's the Northern Lights,' Sara said, softly. 'I didn't think you could see them this far south.'

'I know. Sara, we're so lucky.'

Awestruck, they gazed upwards, watching the colours reaching and shifting until at last they faded away and left the clear expanse of dark sky, and a few bright stars.

'It lasts as long as it lasts,' Mila repeated, quietly. 'And it's beautiful while it does.'

**Author's Note:**

> For the Ladiesbingo prompt 'Northern/Southern Lights'
> 
> Title from 'Ganga' by John Lawson:
> 
> 'When galaxies, and dark bewildering tempests  
> And northern lights, and shooting stars together  
> Mix in their changeful sport...'


End file.
